I'm quite a fan of hers, though I've never seen her on stage. Her originally Czech surname was Zajic, which apparently rhymes with "Lights"! She added the k to turn it into two syllables. I think of her as ZAYjick but apparently it's ZAHjick.

I always hear it rhymed with "magic." She's from Oregon, and on her first couple of recordings (Forza del Destino, Verdi Requiem) one can still see the name spelled without the final K. No doubt she got tired of well-meaning people twisting their mouths to say "Zah-yees?" "Zay-jich?" and wanted to give them a hint.

Thinking about the pronunciation of some letters in European languages, I can see wheree Zajic might come through as Tsayeetch. Zajick certainly sounds like spelling was changed to match American pronunciationZ